The Construction and Reconstruction of Ritual Space at Tiwanaku, Bolivia (A.D. 500–1000)

Investigations carried out in 1996 and 2000-2002 at the Pumapunku Temple Complex at Tiwanaku, Bolivia (A.D. 500-950) combined historical research, data recovered from previously unpublished excavations, strategically-placed small-scale trenches, and three dimensional architectural and stratgraphic recordings. The construction, use, and subsequent modifications, substantial and ephemeral, to the Temple Complex span 500 years. This period, the apogee of the Tiwanaku phenomenon, provides a theoretical case study of the role monumentality can play in the development of an archaic state. The Pumapunku Temple Complex facilitated movement of large throngs of pilgrims; it served both as a ritual gateway to the city and as a theater for projecting a redundant and widely comprehensible message to arriving visitors through the use of facades and intentionalal alignments of sacred features.